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Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory
Operated by Battelle
for the
U.S. Department of Energy
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"The Hanford Site lies within the semiarid Pasco Basin of the Columbia Plateau in southeastern Washington State. The site occupies an area of approximately 1,517 square kilometers (approximately 586 square miles)....located north of the city of Richland and the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia rivers.
The Hanford Site was acquired by the federal government in 1943, and until 1989, was dedicated primarly to the production of plutonium for national defense and the management of resulting waste.
The entire site has been designated a National Environmental Research Park (one of four nationally) by the former U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, a precursor to DOE. The site is a relatively large, undisturbed area of shurb-steppe that contians a rich, natural diversity of plant and animal species adapted to the region's semiarid environment."
Summary of the Hanford Site, Environmental Report, 1999. Eds. RW Hanf, LF Morasch, TM Poston, GP O'Connor. September 2000. PNNL-13230-SUM